overstrain
/əʊvəˈstreɪn
/verb [with object]
Subject to an excessive demand on strength, resources, or abilities: there was a risk he might overstrain his heart...
- More committed to winning the war than to ruling Germany, he lent his prestige to a series of policies, including unrestricted submarine warfare, that overstrained Germany's resources and added the USA to an already long list of enemies.
- These positivists notice overwhelming evidence to show that the leadership overstrained their resources in every way.
- With the decline of the Roman empire, barbarian attacks impoverished and depopulated the frontier provinces, and laid a burden of defense on the empire which overstrained the administrative machinery and its economic resources.
noun [mass noun]
The action or result of overstraining: overstrain had brought on tuberculosis...
- One should also add a part of the costs shouldered by the postwar generations in the form of diverse long-term adverse effects of wartime overstrain.
- Their language isolation causes overstrain of the nervous system, which leads to various conflict situations.
- Two principal factors are involved: intellectual overstrain and emotional stress.